


The Smirk Thing

by ElnaK



Series: Books of Sacrifices [5]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Fusco's daily life, Gen, Humor, John's smirk, Season/Series 04, the Smirk Thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 10:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10358700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElnaK/pseuds/ElnaK
Summary: When Lionel Fusco noticed the tense atmosphere at the precinct, he immediately knew Wonderboy had caused it, one way or another.





	

**Author's Note:**

> No, but, John's smirk, guys! John's smirk!  
> And, yeah, everyone ( except John, who doesn't know they're talking about him again ) is dramatizing the whole thing, but still...

When Lionel Fusco entered the precinct, headed as usual to his desk - which was supposedly face to face with Detective John "Riley"'s own desk, but that was debatable considering how often Tall, Dark and Stormy was not at his desk - Lionel immediately noticed the wrong feeling of slight though confused fear in the precinct. Unfortunately, he had become quite good at noticing such unnatural atmospheres while hanging around Wonderboy. It said something about their working relationship, Lionel was sure.

Which wasn't exactly a good thing, but anyway.

Lionel could tell there was something in the air, and he had the feeling it had to do with his wayward partner / personal bane. When something was off like that, it was usually Reese's fault.

Lionel made a grand total of three steps to his desk before circumstances forced him to address the problem: criminals and cops alike were uncharacteristically jumpy, just like when something unnerving happened and you can't quite shake the unease off. When Lionel brushed shoulders with the captain without meaning to, Moreno basically jumped two feet away in badly concealed fright.

There was a short silence during which Lionel and the captain only stared at each other.

"Alright, spill it: what happened?"

Moreno's eyes flickered to Wonderboy's desk as her upper lip twitched. Lionel rolled his eyes, his suspicions basically confirmed.

"Or, rather, what did Riley do?"

The captain offered a weak smile for him to drop the issue, but Lionel really wanted to know if his partner had pissed off another mob boss or taken on an international hitman before lunch, just in case it'd fall back on him, poor Fusco. Tall, Dark and Stormy had a thing to make deadly enemies - though most of them didn't live long enough, or otherwise ended up in maximum security jails soon enough, that they weren't a threat for long. Nonetheless, Lionel'd rather not be knocked out on his way home to be used as bait. Live baits didn't tend to stay alive very long.

Moreno eventually sighed, and confessed.

"Riley got a call, and this thing happened with his face..."

The captain looked just as distressed at her own reaction to Wonderboy's facial expression as she was because of the expression itself. Beginning to have a good idea of what exactly had happened, Lionel pinched his brow lightly. No wonder they all looked as if they had barely avoided wetting themselves; the detective still didn't know how his personal bane did it, but Lionel too felt like that whenever it happened.

"He did the Smirk Thing, didn't he?"

Moreno gave him an incredulous look, which was somewhat dampened by her tense attitude.

"The Smirk Thing?"

"The Smirk Thing. His face gets all scary-lookingly gleeful, you instinctively feel someone's in for a world of pain, and next thing you know he's walking out the door with a grenade launcher on his shoulder and you should really get medics ready for a few kneecappings and various other injuries. I swear, this guy was a contract killer in a previous life."

Lionel's words only encountered startled silence. The cops were probably balancing the probability that he had already witnessed such a scene, with the chances it was only Riley's partner exaggerating. Were it about any other cop, they wouldn't even consider it, but that was Riley they were talking about. They wouldn't put it beneath him to pull out a grenade launcher. Because they hadn't seen it happen yet, didn't mean anything, really.

Silence took over for half a minute, when a police officer suddenly jumped out of his chair with an indignant “Oh come on, man!” at the thug he had been talking to prior to Lionel Fusco's arrival. The guy had looked unwell since even before Riley's Smirk Thing – in fact, since Riley had come into the precinct, the thug had been clutching at his bad knee as if in memory of his past kneecapping, now that the police officer thought about it... - but now, the guy had gone all the way, white as a sheet, and apparently damp as a child's sheet after a nightmare, too. No one would ever know why exactly the thug had ended up wetting himself at that particular moment, because he wouldn't speak of it – but Lionel had a pretty clear idea of what had happened anyway.

No matter. What mattered here, was that the silence was suddenly broken, the indignant officer lead his suspect / witness / whatever away to get him cleaned up, and Lionel spoke up again. Just to confirm things, you know. In case someone still hadn't quite gotten it.

"That's the Smirk Thing."

Moreno gave him a disbelieving look, obviously wondering what she could have done in a previous life to warrant such retribution, in the form of a slightly-too-james-bondish detective who literally reeked of gunpowder half the time, and his totally _blasé_ partner.

“That's the Smirk Thing?”

Perhaps if she repeated Fusco's words one more time, they'd just negate themselves and disappear.

The detective nodded, already looking around his desk for something or another.

“That's the Smirk Thing.”

The captain still couldn't quite believe it. There was something fondamentaly wrong with Riley, she had known that for a long time already, but this? Lionel Fusco wasn't even fazed by this Smirk Thing anymore, it seemed.

It said a lot about what exactly John Riley was made of – read, way too much of a tendency to shoot people, make things explode, and, amongst yet some other things, have thugs peeing themselves just from his presence, it seemed – and Moreno wasn't certain how exactly the man had ended up in the police – or how Fusco managed to work with him, for the matter. Sometimes she felt like John Riley was the scariest criminal in Manhattan, a mix between a broke Bruce Wayne and... well, James Bond out of job – and the NYPD just hadn't gotten the memo when reviewing his candidacy.

Fusco's cellphone rang distinctively, making the detective groan under an impending sense of doom. Trust him to use James Bond's theme as TDS's – Tall, Dark and Stormy – ringtone, but perhaps now wasn't the best moment to have the captain hear it. Even more so if Wonderboy had done the Smirk Thing earlier on, for everyone else to see.

Moreno glanced at the name on display, and sure enough, things went from ridiculous to shitty.

“Put Riley on spearkerphone, Detective Fusco.”

Lionel didn't bother arguing on that one. The only thing he could really do was warning Wonderboy.

“Roger that. Tall, Dark and Stormy? You're on speakerphone, just so you know. Captain's here."

Reese's low, vaguely menacing voice rose from the cellphone with carefully worded sentences.

_"Lionel. Leah Blake is safe, I've resolved our case, and I'm staring at the evidence right now."_

Lionel almost snorted, wondering why he even bothered trying to pass “Riley” off as a normal police detective. This, really, sounded more like a hitman reporting the results of his latest kill. Or, you know, a government assassin reporting in – not that Wonderboy had ever told him who he was exactly. What Lionel did know about John was black ops and CIA. And freaking terrifying.

Which was enough.

"And?"

_"And what?"_

"Who died?"

The pause before Riley's answer kind of felt offended by the question, Moreno noted abstractedly.

_"Why would someone be dead?"_

"You started with the soothing news."

There was a silence on the other end of the conversation. Everyone in the precinct was holding their breath, immediately noticing the lack of denial. Riley wasn't even trying, at this point.

_"One of the dealers might have jumped out a window."_

"I freaking knew it!!!"

_"And the other three seem to have encountered a wall."_

Because people jumped out of windows on a daily basis – they did when they had Reese after them – and met face to face with walls everyday – more like Wonderboy had knocked them out against said wall, which, for the sake of accuracy, went with the explanation of an unfortunate encounter.

TDS hang up at that point, leaving Lionel to stare exasperatedly at his phone, before turning to the captain with a look of utter disbelief written all over his face.

"What did I tell you?!? Three things: John Riley, previous life, killer for hire!"

No one in the precinct argued with the detective on that one.

 


End file.
